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A nitpick, but an important one: NSEERS was started as a response to 9/11 several years before Obama took office. It's absolutely not correct to call it "Obama'

by gcr 10y ago

A nitpick, but an important one: NSEERS was started as a response to 9/11 several years before Obama took office. It's absolutely not correct to call it "Obama's muslim registry" or "the Obama version." The hullabaloo over NSEERS was drowned out by the hullabaloo over all the other things 9/11 brought forth.

dominotw 10y ago
> hullabaloo over NSEERS Bush or Obama, I don't think a single tech company publically refused to build this registry. What is the hullabaloo you are referring to. Why is it different this time? Also puzzled why I am being downvoted, is this a stupid question to ask?
- LordDragonfang 10y ago
  I think he's referring to a "hullabaloo that would have been" had the American populace not been otherwise distracted and coerced into thinking it needed such things.
  - dominotw 10y ago
    But these are not regular people, these are corporations. Were corporations coerced into building these registries by bush/obama govt's.
    - gcr 10y ago
      The pledge you originally mentioned (neveragain.tech) was created by and for individual people, not corporations. It is not a petition. The difference is important. In a pledge, engineers sit down and define their own ethical boundaries for themselves. A pledge succeeds when even a single one of its signatories follows through: by action, by resignation, by speaking up, or by sabotage. The power remains with the individual to keep their promise or not. The intent is already there; only the action matters. A petition is different. Several concerned citizens who are not stakeholders ask a corporation to do something. A petition fails when the company simply decides not to do the thing. Here, neither the intent nor the action is present. We saw the difference clearly illustrated in Rogue One. Chief scientist officer Galen Erso did not petition the empire to dismantle the death star. He simply pledged that no matter the circumstances, he would destroy it by whichever way he knew how, even though he knew full well this action would cost him his life. Back to your point: the difference between the rise of NSEERS and the future rise of the Trump Muslim registry is that now individuals _within these corporations_ are beginning to make a concrete, visible, and actionable pledge to destroy the registry. Maybe there was less hullabaloo during the origin of NSEERS. I see the current stance as "learning from previous mistakes." Or perhaps "trying a more effective approach." There's no reason to place blame on "obama's muslim registry" (your words not mine), when we're trying better strategies now.

by gcr 10y ago

dominotw 10y ago

> hullabaloo over NSEERS Bush or Obama, I don't think a single tech company publically refused to build this registry. What is the hullabaloo you are referring to. Why is it different this time? Also puzzled why I am being downvoted, is this a stupid question to ask?

LordDragonfang 10y ago
I think he's referring to a "hullabaloo that would have been" had the American populace not been otherwise distracted and coerced into thinking it needed such things.
- dominotw 10y ago
  But these are not regular people, these are corporations. Were corporations coerced into building these registries by bush/obama govt's.
  - gcr 10y ago
    The pledge you originally mentioned (neveragain.tech) was created by and for individual people, not corporations. It is not a petition. The difference is important. In a pledge, engineers sit down and define their own ethical boundaries for themselves. A pledge succeeds when even a single one of its signatories follows through: by action, by resignation, by speaking up, or by sabotage. The power remains with the individual to keep their promise or not. The intent is already there; only the action matters. A petition is different. Several concerned citizens who are not stakeholders ask a corporation to do something. A petition fails when the company simply decides not to do the thing. Here, neither the intent nor the action is present. We saw the difference clearly illustrated in Rogue One. Chief scientist officer Galen Erso did not petition the empire to dismantle the death star. He simply pledged that no matter the circumstances, he would destroy it by whichever way he knew how, even though he knew full well this action would cost him his life. Back to your point: the difference between the rise of NSEERS and the future rise of the Trump Muslim registry is that now individuals _within these corporations_ are beginning to make a concrete, visible, and actionable pledge to destroy the registry. Maybe there was less hullabaloo during the origin of NSEERS. I see the current stance as "learning from previous mistakes." Or perhaps "trying a more effective approach." There's no reason to place blame on "obama's muslim registry" (your words not mine), when we're trying better strategies now.